The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 eBook

After having mention’d these two great Principles,
which are destructive of Chearfulness in their own
Nature, as well as in right Reason, I cannot think
of any other that ought to banish this happy Temper
from a Virtuous Mind. Pain and Sickness, Shame
and Reproach, Poverty and old Age, nay Death it self,
considering the Shortness of their Duration, and the
Advantage we may reap from them, do not deserve the
Name of Evils. A good Mind may bear up under
them with Fortitude, with Indolence and with Chearfulness
of Heart. The tossing of a Tempest does not discompose
him, which he is sure will bring him to a Joyful Harbour.

A Man, who uses his best endeavours to live according
to the Dictates of Virtue and right Reason, has two
perpetual Sources of Chearfulness; in the Consideration
of his own Nature, and of that Being on whom he has
a Dependance. If he looks into himself, he cannot
but rejoice in that Existence, which is so lately
bestowed upon him, and which, after Millions of Ages,
will be still new, and still in its Beginning.
How many Self-Congratulations naturally arise in
the Mind, when it reflects on this its Entrance into
Eternity, when it takes a View of those improveable
Faculties, which in a few Years, and even at its first
setting out, have made so considerable a Progress,
and which will be still receiving an Increase of Perfection,
and consequently an Increase of Happiness? The
Consciousness of such a Being spreads a perpetual
Diffusion of Joy through the Soul of a virtuous Man,
and makes him look upon himself every Moment as more
happy than he knows how to conceive.

The second Source of Chearfulness to a good Mind,
is its Consideration of that Being on whom we have
our Dependance, and in whom, though we behold him
as yet but in the first faint Discoveries of his Perfections,
we see every thing that we can imagine as great, glorious,
or amiable. We find our selves every where upheld
by his Goodness, and surrounded with an Immensity
of Love and Mercy. In short, we depend upon a
Being, whose Power qualifies him to make us happy
by an Infinity of Means, whose Goodness and Truth
engage him to make those happy who desire it of him,
and whose Unchangeableness will secure us in this Happiness
to all Eternity.

Such Considerations, which every one should perpetually
cherish in his Thoughts, will banish, from us all
that secret Heaviness of Heart which unthinking Men
are subject to when they lie under no real Affliction,
all that Anguish which we may feel from any Evil that
actually oppresses us, to which I may likewise add
those little Cracklings of Mirth and Folly that are
apter to betray Virtue than support it; and establish
in us such an even and chearful Temper, as makes us
pleasing to our selves, to those with whom we converse,
and to him whom we were made to please.